Master Plan
by PrincessGossamerRaventress
Summary: Post NFA: The aftermath of the battle.
1. Prologue

The alley was quiet. The last defender had fallen; the last demon warrior had returned to hell. Only scorch marks and a few puddles of various bodily fluids, some human, some not, remained to bear silent witness to the night's battle.

A man entered the alley. He gazed around warily for several moments before relaxing. Glancing down, he noticed a small pile of ashes. He smiled. Angel, you should have known I'd have a back up plan, he thought.A car pulled up to the alley's entrance and a woman's voice called out: "Lindsey, we'd better get out of here before the authorities show up".

"Yeah, you're right," he said absently as he scuffled his shoe through the ashes.

"Come on, Lindsey," the woman said impatiently.

"Okay, okay, I'll be right there," Lindsey said, scraping the ashes off his shoe before getting into the car. Turning to his companion, he said "We did it! We finally won!"

"It feels great, doesn't it?" she said.

Lindsey smiled triumphantly. "I never could have done it without you baby," he said.

"Don't sell yourself short," she said. "You would have found another way."

"I'm not kidding. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have made it out of LA in the first place. That 'Cops Suck' sign would have gotten me 'Rodney Kinged' before I hit the freeway," Lindsey said.

The woman laughed. "I've always known that's the real reason you wanted revenge, not Darla, not your hand, but because he threatened your precious truck."

"Hey, a man's truck is special. You mess with it at your own risk," Lindsey said with a grin. "Anyway, I don't know if I've said it before, but thanks again, Cordelia."


	2. Reflections

As he and Cordelia drove through the dark California night, Lindsey's thoughts turned to the early days of their partnership. He remembered the frantic telephone call he'd received just as he was about to pull onto the main road outside the Hyperion the night he planned to leave Los Angeles. He vividly recalled his anger at the "Cops Suck" sign Angel had placed on his beloved pick-up truck; a sign which could have earned him a stint in jail or even a beating at the hands of LA's finest. Cordelia had saved him. In the months following they had kept in touch sporadically, the seer occasionally warning him of danger from Wolfram and Hart's minions.

Lindsey had been incredulous when Cordelia informed him that Angel was the new CEO of Wolfram and Hart. Incredulous and furious. What a hypocrite. He condemned me for accepting a job offer from Holland Manners, when I was a dirt-poor teenager trying to make it through college on a scholarship while working two jobs, then Angel and his entire crew join the firm. Criticizing me, making fun of me when I tried to explain, telling me I sold my soul for a fifth floor office. Where does he get off condemning me? Lindsey thought angrily. He had been more than willing to join Cordelia's vendetta against Angel and his colleagues.

Coming back to the present, he said, "You've never told me why you wanted revenge."

Cordelia sighed. "Where to begin? I guess you could say it all started with a kiss."

Lindsey looked at her inquiringly.

Cordelia continued. "As you know, Doyle passed the visions on to me not long after I joined Angel Investigations. It was okay for a while, but it just got worse and worse. I was in so much pain and no one, not even my so-called 'best friend' seemed to notice. And yes, I told them exactly how much pain I was in and they just ignored me. That's when I started re-thinking this whole 'warrior of the light' thing. I mean, if the Powers That Be are such good guys why were they allowing me to suffer so much when I was helping them? Why did they allow evil to flourish in the first place? After a while, I came to the conclusion that they're no better than the Senior Partners. In fact, you could say they're worse, at least the Senior Partners reward their minions. All I got for my sacrifice was brain damage and intolerable pain."

Lindsey put his hand on her arm. "I know what you mean, babe. You try to do the right thing and you just get punished. Look at my double; he trusted Angel and ended up shot down like a dog. What a great guy," he said bitterly. "Then what happened?" he asked.

Cordelia paused for a few moments before speaking. "Finally, I had the mother of all visions. I saw it all: Fred showing up, everyone focused on her, shoving me aside like I was nothing to them after all we'd been through, me being possessed by that rogue Power That Be or whatever the hell it was, using me to give birth to itself, then ending up in a coma, wasting away in that hospital bed for months, alone, forgotten, no one even trying to help me." She turned to face Lindsey, her face creased in anger.

He patted her arm again. "It's okay sweetheart. You might want to keep your eyes on the road, babe."

Cordy gave him a tired smile. "Sorry."

"No need to apologize. Believe me, I know how you feel. I came to Angel for help that one time and he treated me like I was something he'd scraped off his shoe," Lindsey said. "Anyway, you were saying."

"I had the vision and decided enough was enough. Nobody treats Queen C like that and gets away with it. So I charmed my way into Wolfram and Hart, visited the White Room, made my deal with the Senior Partners and the rest was history," Cordy said.

"What exactly did they do?" Lindsey asked, mildly surprised that Cordelia was finally opening up to him.

"They sent me to a place called the Fairfield Clinic . . .," Cordy said.

Lindsey interrupted her. "Oh yeah, Wolfram and Hart's chop shop of choice. That's where I had my hand replaced."

Cordy punched his arm. "This is my story," she said, chagrined.

Lindsey grinned. "Sorry. Please go on."

Cordy continued her tale. "They did every medical test I'd ever heard of and then some. When the doctors were through, the shamans had their go. Then they did some mystic-mojo thing and created an exact replica of me, memories and all, right down to the visions. Of course, she was only a physical replica; the girl didn't have my style."

"Wow, that's amazing," Lindsey said. "I had no idea that mystical cloning technology was so far advanced. Hey, wait a minute, why didn't they just do that for my hand instead of all that transplant rigmarole?"

"I guess I'm just special," Cordy said with a superior smile.

"Right," Lindsey muttered.

Cordy smacked his arm. Curious, she said, "So where did your double come from, if he wasn't a clone?"

Lindsey sighed. "From another dimension, one similar to ours, but with a few differences."

"Different, how?" Cordy said.

"Angel never got his soul back; he, Spike, Darla and Dru continued their rampage, and in 1982, murdered the entire McDonald family except for . . . him. . . me," Lindsey said quietly. "He'd spent twenty years tracking down his family's killers, but was never able to catch up to them. Then the slayer, no, not Buffy, another girl, Kendra, I think her name was, managed to take out the lot of them. Was he ever pissed off about that, all those years planning revenge and having it snatched out from under his nose by a teen-aged girl," Lindsey said, shaking his head. "Anyway, I pulled him out of there, explained everything to him and he agreed to impersonate me in LA while I took care of our business in the Astral Plane."

Cordy said nothing, merely raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, I didn't tell him everything, but he was more than happy to get his revenge against Angelus anyway he could." Lindsey sighed. "I never meant for him to suffer the way he did. He was just supposed to take out Angel, not get sucked into a hell dimension, then murdered by Lorne," Lindsey's voice tightened. "I'm gonna track that green SOB down and make him pay if it's the last thing I do."

"I've no doubt you will, Lindsey. Oh, by the way, if you want to permanently kill Lorne, cut off his head and mutilate his body. Otherwise he just won't die," Cordy said.

"Thanks for the tip. Funny, you'd think Angel would have noticed 'Lindsey' didn't have a scar around his right wrist seeing that he was responsible for it being there in the first place," Lindsey said.

"Or that 'Cordelia' didn't act anything like me. Sheesh, you'd think the hair alone would have tipped him off. Me as a bleach blonde with a rice bowl cut? I mean, really, that's insulting," Cordy said, tossing her long brunette locks.

Lindsey snorted. "Yeah, that's right. Forget the total change in your personality, forget sleeping with that ugly, creepy, psycho son of his, it's all about the hair."

Cordelia laughed again. "Angel was never all that bright. Did he really think I'd let myself be 'demonized' by some ugly hell-beast just so I could continue to be vision-girl?"

"So when did you pull the switch?" Lindsey asked.

"Right after Lorne's cousin showed up," Cordy said. "When Wesley opened the portal to Pylea, I ran out the door while everybody was distracted. The Senior Partners shoved my double through another portal at the same time and I moved into a suite at the Beverly Hills Hilton where I've been staying ever since."

They rode in silence for a time, heading northwards as the sun began to rise.

Lindsey was the first to speak. "I've been working for this day for so long, and now that it's here and I've gotten my revenge, I feel kinda empty."

Cordy nodded. "I know what you mean. On one hand, I'm finally free of Angel, the visions, the whole vengeance thing, on the other, what do I do with my life now?"

Lindsey gazed at her thoughtfully. "So, where do we go from here?"


End file.
